Tasmanian water for SA no 'pipe dream'

By Eloise FussUpdated
Thu 12 Apr 2012, 5:02 PM AEST

Photo

Water would go through a hydroelectric plant then be piped north-west

Audience submitted: Jeff Brislane

Pumping water from elsewhere to South Australia has been suggested before, but a Melbourne company says its proposal to pump water from Tasmania is feasible and affordable - not just another pipe dream.

Docklands Science Park has developed a plan to use a six-metre-wide pipe to transport up to 500 gigalitres annually from Tasmania to SA.

Director John Martin said both the Tasmania and SA Governments had shown interest in the plan, which has an estimated cost in the billions.

Mr Martin said Tasmania was an ideal source of fresh water, with that state using 1,000 gigalitres per year, while 45,000 gigalitres of fresh water flowed out to sea.

He said water would be sourced from the Tasmanian west coast, first going through a hydroelectricity plant, then being piped to SA across Victoria.

"It can go to Adelaide, then across to places like Roxby Downs and also up to the Moonta and into the Cooper Basin," he said.

While some may be sceptical about the latest synthetic material pipeline idea, Mr Martin insisted the plan was more feasible than the steel pipelines proposed in the past.

"What we have here is something you can simply roll out and that makes it very very cheap by comparison," he said.

Mining supply

The scientific company said users would meet the costs and could include major mining companies.

It has been suggested the maintenance costs would be 'next to nothing'.

"You shouldn't have any maintenance costs worth talking about for the first 35 years anyway and the way it's constructed you can actually zip it together so if you get a leak you unzip that section, repair it, and zip it back again," Mr Martin said.

For companies such as BHP Billiton, Mr Martin said the pipeline would minimise any environmental impact and could be less invasive than the company's proposed desalination plant, and far more economical.

"The desalinated water is something like 50 times the cost and you've got health risks associated with desalinated water due to the boron," he said.

Docklands is putting together a business plan and detailed costings for the SA Government.

The company is also suggesting its pipeline construction method might help solve Murray-Darling Basin water problems.

Mr Martin said: "Archimedes would have looked at it and said 'Well what took you so long?'."